“Mr. James Hennessy offered a resolution that the entire body proceed forthwith to Newark and get drunk… Then the Democrats charged upon the street cars, and being wafted into Newark proceeded, to use their own metaphor, to ‘paint the town red’.”
New York Times 1883

“…because they would be paid up in Chicago for their half-year’s work, and would then do their best towards painting that town in purest vermilion.”
Rudyard Kipling, ‘A Little More Beef’ 1889

“And there he was at the end of his tether after having often painted the town tolerably pink without a beggarly stiver.”
James Joyce, ‘Ulysses’ 1920

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres…”
Matthew 23:27 (King James version) 1611